Analysing trends and patterns in retrenchment research: a bibliometric approach

Abstract

In today’s highly competitive business market, the optimization of operational efficiency and expense reduction is crucial for firms to maintain profitability and ensure long-term sustainability. A popular corporate strategy for achieving such goals is retrenchment, which involves shrinking or reorganizing organizational activities. The significance of conducting a bibliometric study on retrenchment lies in its ability to offer valuable insights to scholars, policymakers, and stakeholders interested in retrenchment and implementation and how it impacts employees and organisations. The review further identifies trends and patterns in retrenchment, highlighting significant works, and presenting a comprehensive understanding of it as a corporate strategy. To evaluate the research on labour retrenchment, a document search was conducted using article titles and keywords, analysing published documents and their citations. The data on publications were obtained from the Scopus database for this study. The VOS viewer tool was utilized to visualize the data derived from Scopus, while Harzing’s Publish or Perish programme (Windows GUI Edition) was employed to analyse the citations and performance indicators of the publications. The findings reveal a total of 79 documents published by 177 writers between 1982 and 2023. There is evidence that the sum of publications on retrenchment has been steadily snowballing over time necessitating attention. The study observed a global interest in retrenchment research, with contributions from various countries and across multiple subject areas. The study also examined the top 26 most cited publications on retrenchment, showing variations in citation numbers and rates over time. Keyword co-occurrence network analysis identified significant groupings in retrenchment research. These clusters offer a comprehensive view of retrenchment research which adequately covers a range of themes, including the healthcare industry in the United States, the intersection of retrenchment and healthcare, the psychological effects, economic factors, and ethical implications